Communication Breakdown: Making The Most Out Of The Chat Wheel

From practical commands to all chat hero lines that can tilt the enemy team, the chat wheel has been a crucial communication tool for Dota. Here are some of the most useful lines to improve your game.

Before the chat wheel, your options were to either type or use the voice chat—both avenues where people were more liable to express their frustrations than provide constructive commands. The chat wheel, with its preset lines, redirects your pain points into more actionable goals. Rather than venting about the lack of vision on the map, a chat wheel line can politely nudge teammates to “Deward please.”

But the chat wheel is more than just a tool to tell your teammates your lane opponent is missing from the lane. It can manage team morale, tilt your enemies, and bring some levity in a very stressful game.

Positioning Lines

While positioning lines can be pretty straightforward, you don’t need many of them. “Go!” is perhaps the most you’ll need, and self-explanatory enough where more specific lines such as “Stun now!”, “Initiate!”, and “Attack now!” are wasted slots. Most of the lines under positioning are simple and explicit. The difficulty rises with chat lines that are open for interpretation.

“Get back!” means get back, but “I’m retreating” suggests that your team should consider going back, since you’re now out of the fight. This could lead to your team acting out of unison, which is far worse than just moving together, even if you disagree with the command.

There are useful, implicit lines. “Get ready” prompts your team to fall in line, and it’s particularly useful if you’re either anticipating a gank or initiating one yourself. Too often a teamfight unfolds incorrectly because teammates are out of position—a few steps behind cast range or a few seconds behind a TP response.

Admitting Fault

No team plays perfectly, and the flavor lines in the chat wheel is a great way to acknowledge faults without bringing your team down. “Game is hard” is both agreeable and true. “Space created” can be used when you’ve fed, regardless if actual space was created. “I immediately regret my decision” is a lighthearted way to express regret.

What matters is these lines brings your team back on the same page, rather than let the moment linger. When playing with four other strangers, team cohesion is in a tenuous place of balance, and the smallest thing can set off a downward spiral of finger pointing.

Checking The Time

Alt-clicking the clock puts the current time into your team chat. It’s convenient to remind your team of Roshan death times, creep pulls, or tracking ultimate cooldowns. But it’s most useful before every 5 minutes, as a way to alert your team that they should prep to grab the bounty runes. With the new significance of bounty runes and how they can sway a game, it’s surprising that pub players often lose their diligence in picking them up. Experienced players will expend TPs just to grab the bounties across the map.

Managing Morale And Tilting The Enemy Team

The chat wheel can be as much of a boon to your team chemistry as it is a weapon against your opponents. Usual bad manners like all-chatting "ez mid," "Good Game, Well Played," or spamming "?" can be effective, but they've become too common to have the same impact. Plus, spam it enough and your opponent might just respond with a mute.

The introduction of all chat hero lines has provided a cheekier way to tilt your enemies. TI winner OG.Ceb said he spammed certain heroes because he needed their all chat lines for the tournament, like Enchantress' "Don't be mad" line. These lines double as both a taunt and a victory lap after a won fight. You have Necrophos' "That was costly." and Windranger's "I don't think so." that can punctuate your enemies' errors. They also broadcast to your teammates on other parts of the map that you're doing well, even if their lane might not be the best.

The overall level of Dota players have evolved to a point where you can no longer climb MMR by muting everyone and just playing your game. Players need to acknowledge with each other. The chat wheel is a valuable tool, and though it can be restrictive, its limitations also ensures that your team is communicating effectively.

Interesting. I myself like to use "Relax you're doing fine". Surprisingly it works most of them time. They would usually stop blaming each other or just play more safely. It gives them some motivation and the feeling that its gonna be fine and it doesnt matter even if they're dying a lot because youre getting more space.

Always funny when I see people complaining about DotA somehow becoming pay to win. Like, do you just expect all your games to be free? Yeah, lets just hand you a game and the people who make the game won't get paid. Fuck the developers. They don't matter.

It's only $4 a month. Less if you subscribe for a longer period at a time. If you can't even afford that, I think you have bigger issues to worry about than DotA being "pay2win".

The question is not about how much it costs, but about whether the people you are matched up with have been given the same opportunities as you. Overwatch is monetarily fair because everyone paid the same cost of entry and has no barriers to gameplay content. League of Legends on the other hand does have barriers to gameplay content. If some people go in with something they paid for that affects the outcome of the game, then the outcome cannot be said to have occurred solely on the basis of the skill of the players. That being said, I'm not of the mindset that using the new all chat taunts are in any way more affective than a common message, so to me the game still does not provide a non-skilll-based tiered competitive environment.

The question is not about how much it costs, but about whether the people you are matched up with have been given the same opportunities as you. Overwatch is monetarily fair because everyone paid the same cost of entry and has no barriers to gameplay content. League of Legends on the other hand does have barriers to gameplay content. If some people go in with something they paid for that affects the outcome of the game, then the outcome cannot be said to have occurred solely on the basis of the skill of the players. That being said, I'm not of the mindset that using the new all chat taunts are in any way more affective than a common message, so to me the game still does not provide a non-skilll-based tiered competitive environment.

It only matters of understanding dude, Dota2 doesn't really pay2win game as we knew from the start, but as TI progress and crowdfunded prizepool rocks, and just any fundings can always help the game to the better, they offer stuff to sell without directly affecting the game itself like arcana etc, you don't expect people pays without granted anything right? So they are giving up the least affecting factor bonuses to the game as appreciation to those who are supporting them. You have a point there though because Dota2 is a mind games, just like other sports, may it be soccer of basketball, taunt is non game violation which is where you wrong when you mentioned Dota2 being not competitive.

@PERFECT TOAST same goes to arcana which act like any sport players uniform, these things did not change the game mechanics, only appearance, whilst taunt is a very different form, they are substantially has the same effect on the players mind. i.e. Chinese basketball players will have a better morale when they are playing with red or yellow colored uniform.

I can't tell if you are disagreeing with me or just taking my comment as a jumping off point, but the question of cosmetics definitely irks me sometimes. Drastic changes to sound effects or the color or size of a hero bugs me because it can confuse for just a split second which feels like an advantage

Read over your message again and I think I din't make myself clear maybe? I'm fine with Dota adding cosmetics and taunts and stuff like that because it largely doesn't interfere with the gameplay (except for a few color changes and sound effect changes). I don't see the taunts as being an advantage because you can still taunt if you don't pay for plus, so everyone is still on even footing. Valve promised the game would maintain a level playing field years ago, and they have stuck to that very well.

Never meant to sound like I thought dota2 was not competitive, but I see how my wording was confusing

>Affirmative. Honestly, I think the only wheel I use non-sarcastically is >Relax, you're doing fine; and >Dive! . >Well Played is usually when something obvious is stated, >Space Created is usually when we lose a major team fight resulting in a loss while one of our players is off in the jungle somewhere, >(all) Good Game, Well Played is usually when the enemy does something by all definitions "retarded"

In other news,

Currently the Enchanted Mango has a 31.18% win rate. This is a tragedy. Whether being accidentally used while still in fountain or used just in time for that clutch nyx stun saving your teammate's life, it has always made memorable game impacts. It is our duty and responsibility as fellow gamers and members of this community to give the item the win rate it deserves. Thank you in advance for your support.

@PERFECT TOAST I'm not complaining about it. Although I'm a little sad that I have some constraints that prevent me from being able to subscribe to dota plus and I'm missing out on all these cool features that my friends are enjoying :(

You forgot to mention that if you have spanish, russian, whatever language you don't speak in-game, in your game, you can use those chat commands, and it will show them in their respective languages. Not sure about the hero Dotaplus chat commands, but the normal chat commands reflect to them in their own languages.

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